Station Eleven !!

Last weekend I took a trip to Chicago, which was great. Nothing purely touristy, but I got to see all the new places old friends are now living–which was perfect. I was very pleased to see folks doing well and pursuing projects. My brother even took me to his job, working for a foundation called Young Eisner Scholars.

Another thing that made the trip enjoyable was that I got to read a great book on the trip. My kindle battery is no more, so I decided to live dangerously and just buy a book from the selection at the airport. After studiously browsing the small selection, I chose Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

As soon as the plane took off and I read the first pages, I got very happy…and relieved. There is a specific side-stabbing sadness I feel when I’m facing four hours in the sky and I realize that my chosen reading material is not going to make it go any faster! But having four uninterrupted hours and a good book that sucks me in makes me soooo happy. This was a book like that. A book that made it okay that the plane landed so late that the last train had gone so I had to wait twenty minutes to take a bus that took forty more minutes to get to my brother’s house–because it gave me more time to spend with my good companion.

I am not a person who, when I like a book, immediately thinks, “It should be a movie!” But this was a book where I could feel images cascading over me, and I see the movie in glimpses. I Googled to see if the book had yet been optioned, and of course, it has, which means a writer will be (or has been) hired who has more credits than me. And yet…

Yesterday I was re-reading it on the train on the way to work–making little notes, thinking about the structural puzzle pieces… I don’t think the character best suited to drive the film would be the same as the one who connects the characters in the book. At least one review has described it as a mystery–but I think the structure is a dramatic thriller with revelations. I have two ideas for the opening image of the film….

Then I looked out the train window and realized I’d missed my stop.

But I didn’t mind too much. I just got out at the next stop with Station Eleven on the platform and watched the world until the train going the other direction arrived.